


Coping Mechanisms

by NeoVenus22



Series: Powergate Chronicles [3]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Mystic Force, Power Rangers Ninja Storm, Power Rangers Wild Force, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-26
Updated: 2009-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-05 07:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Powergate Chronicles: interlude.  Taylor, Eric, Cam, and Xander are the latest SG team. But on their first trip through the Stargate, they are soon forced to make an unexpected sacrifice in order to save one of their own. 'Coping Mechanisms': Xander and Cam try to incorporate Taylor into their bonding rituals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coping Mechanisms

Xander Bly poked his head into the gym cautiously; the major was probably on the warpath and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of that. Sure enough, Taylor was bashing her fists into a punching bag one after the other, muttering under her breath all the while.

Xander almost didn't enter the room, for fear she decided to take her anger out on a human target. But he gritted his teeth and stepped gingerly inside. "Major?"

Taylor looked up mid-punch. She regarded him for a full two seconds before resuming her rhythmic assault, not bothering to greet him.

"You know, Major," he hedged, "you might benefit from visiting Dr. MacKenzie."

"I've already seen the psych," she said. "All the mandatory sessions. I did my time. He signed off on me, if you wanna go check with General Hammond and Doc Fraiser for the records."

"I believe you. I meant maybe you could do it for yourself."

She glared. "Yeah, and do what? Have to relive the mission over and over again? I'd rather not, thanks."

Xander couldn't meet her eyes after that. It wasn't as though he hadn't been suffering too, but he hadn't been running the mission. And there was something Lieutenant Myers —rather, Lord Shu, in the lieutenant's body— had said before going through the Stargate that had seemed unsettling.

"So," she said, catching him off guard because he thought he'd been dismissed. "How come you're the one coming to check up on me? Draw the short straw?"

"I apparently have a 'gift with people.'"

"Huh." She was playing with her fraying shoelace

"Okay, the thing is, Cam and I were thinking of going out." She stared at him blankly. "Cameron?" She kept staring. "Dr. Watanabe," he sighed. He knew she wasn't serious, that she was just posturing. She knew their names. She was just trying to be difficult because she didn't want to make friends. "Are you interested?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'out.'"

"Bowling?"

Taylor rolled her eyes and dropped down on a weight bench heavily. "Seriously. Are you six?"

"They have a bar," he played his trump card. "I bet you haven't really had a chance to relax."

"Who can relax?" she muttered, most likely to herself. But she smiled at him. Sort of. It was more of a grimace, really, but the parts at the ends tilted up, so he guessed that counted. "Tell me you'll buy."

"I think that can be arranged."

"Yeah," she said, as though this was the biggest sacrifice she'd ever made. "All right."

* * *

Taylor raised her brows when the three of them walked into the grungiest bowling alley any of them had ever seen, but to her credit, she didn't say anything. Xander saw her eyeing the bar, and the glasses appeared clean, so she apparently determined the place acceptable. At least, she didn't walk out.

Cam clapped his hands together. "So. Should we go register a lane?"

"You mean you two actually intend to bowl?"

Xander just smiled at Taylor. "This outing wouldn't have much of a point if we didn't. If we weren't interested in bowling, we would have just gone to a bar."

"Explain to me again why we didn't?"

Cam hefted his duffel bag from one shoulder to the other. "Love of the game."

"You brought your own shoes," she realized, her voice horrified and slow.

Cam shrugged at Xander. "I think we offended her delicate sensibilities," he deadpanned.

"With our ultra-manly game?"

Taylor rolled her eyes so hard they practically made a sound. "Oh, please," she scoffed, submitting ever-so-slightly to their humor. "You guys probably candlepin bowl. With bumpers."

"I'll have you know, these are shoes," Cam said, wagging his bag at her. "My own shoes. I used to be in a league, before I got snatched up by NORAD. Grad school, physicists versus the geneticists in the lab down the hall. We'd trash talk each other for weeks beforehand."

Taylor's lips were pressed so tightly in an attempt to not laugh that Xander was worried she'd explode from the effort. He nodded subtly at Cam and they turned towards the surly-looking man at the front desk to let the major have her moment without all that pesky trouble of showing weakness in front of the geeks.

Xander was supposed to be team negotiator, but within minutes, Cam had secured them the piece of paper with the lane number scrawled on it and two pairs of shoes. "Nine and a half for you," he said, passing Xander a hideous mutant green and fluorescent yellow pair with chewed laces, "and an eight for the major."

"How did—"

"I'm close with the supply sergeant," Cam said, then pushed between them. "We're lane twelve," he called over his shoulder.

"These shoes smell disgusting," Taylor reported.

"Well, that just throws off my whole illusion of your harsh military exterior," he laughed. Off her dark look, he coughed out a quick amendment, "Major. Ma'am."

Taylor led the way over, where Cam was bent and shoving his feet into understated brown and red shoes. "Yours are much less ugly than ours," Xander observed, flopping his body into the stiff orange plastic chair.

"I told you I had my own," Cam explained.

"Do you have your own ball, too?" Taylor asked.

"That's harder to carry in a backpack. Plus, tough to explain to the security detail at the base. I got weird enough looks for the shoes."

"That's because you carry bowling shoes around with you," Taylor said.

"It's as though they think none of us have lives," Xander agreed.

When they returned from picking out their bowling balls, Taylor was contemplating her thumb hole. "I think it's crooked. Is that going to affect my game?"

"It's all in your head," Cam dismissed. "Don't go making up excuses now so you're covered when you suck later."

"I could wipe the floor with you."

"Care to wager on that?" he asked, amused.

Taylor eyed him up and down as though in challenging her, he had finally presented himself as an equal. "You're on, doc. Loser buys the first round."

"All right, you've got a deal," said Cam.

To both their surprise, the major grinned at them. "But I just gotta know one thing. Do you guys always coordinate, or is this just on my account?"

Xander looked down; his and Cam's bowling balls were the exact same shade of lime green. "That's no good," Cam said, "put yours back."

"Why should I put mine back?" Xander demanded.

"I got mine first."

"That's ridiculous. They're just bowling balls. It doesn't even matter what color they are."

"Of course it matters. We'll never be able to tell them apart on the rack."

"There are only the three of us!"

"And if someone gets assigned to the next lane?" Cam said with aggravating patience.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Xander said petulantly. He couldn't believe they were challenging each other over something as insane as bowling ball colors. "Look, it'll be easy. Yours is the one with 'MRB' engraved on it. Mine's the one that says... I'll go get a new one," he added hastily, darting away before they could see it read 'princess.' He tried not to notice Cam's triumphant smirk or Taylor's bemused laughter. By the time he came back with a black ball that was deplorably nondescript but much less girly, Cam had finished plugging their initials into the machine and was starting his first frame.

* * *

Taylor was giggling.

As was Cam, for that matter.

Xander suspected it had something to do with the round he'd bought the group, possibly the completely deplorable score he'd gotten, the one which ended up with him buying that round.

"You're _really_ bad," Taylor told him, grinning.

"I thought the granny-bowling would help," Cam said apologetically, "I'm sorry."

"He did _worse_," Taylor marveled. "I mean, he didn't even break a hundred, that's just sad."

"Lots of perfectly good people are perfectly bad bowlers," Xander said.

For some reason, this seemed to be the straw that broke Taylor. She laughed deliriously into the mouth of her bottle, the sound echoing around the empty chamber and warping on the liquid inside, and when she finally lowered the bottle away from her, she said, "One time, I must've been... thirteen?, and Eric and I snuck out 'cause he had an invite to this high school party. So we go to the address he was given, and it turned out to be a bowling alley. But it actually ended up being fun. He started heckling this league a few lanes down from us, and he was just the _worst_ trash-talker, he..."

Taylor trailed off abruptly, staring at them with the horror of someone who had just blurted state secrets. Neither Xander nor Cam knew what to say. Xander, for his part, had always suspected the relationship between Taylor and Lieutenant Myers had been more complicated than they'd let on, but it wasn't his place to say then any more than it was to say now.

"We'll find a way to get him back," Cam said quietly.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Doctor," she said, "but somehow I doubt it. No offense." Her beer was now clenched in a death grip, slippery condensation be damned.

"We're not that awful a team," Xander said, trying to inject some good nature into his tone, but his cheer rang false even to him.

"No," she said, and the flicker of a smile at the far corners of her mouth was sincere, although fleeting. "But look at us. Between the three of us, we can't even bowl a perfect game. How the hell are we supposed to defeat a Goa'uld?"

"It's not like we're not going to bowl Shu for control of the Lieutenant's body," Cam said.

"The fight's personal now," Xander said. "That should give us an advantage."

"You mean disadvantage," she said, shaking her head. "You guys didn't go through boot camp. Emotion is a weakness. It clouds the mind against logical judgment. And when have you ever known me to display emotion?"

"Anger is an emotion, right?" Xander said sideways to Cam.

"Remind me again, just what part of a secret organization traipsing around the galaxy to fight evil snakes is logical?" said Cam.

Taylor was having none of their transparent antics. "My... history with Eric is dangerous. And that snake has Eric's memories, and is going to use them against me. We don't have a chance."

"I don't think so," Xander said. "You'd do anything for him, right?" She stared at Xander bleakly. "Winning is about attitude. You care enough about Eric that you're not going to let anything stop you from saving him. That's enough."

"That's ridiculous," she scoffed.

Xander shrugged, unperturbed. "Call me optimistic."

"We have the advantage of humanity," Cam said. "Shu may have Lieutenant Myers's memories, but he's not Lieutenant Myers. He underestimates simple human emotions. He doesn't understand the lengths we'll go to in order to rescue Myers."

The major shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "You know, you get a girl tipsy, then you sober her right back up," she cracked. Xander may not have known much about Taylor Earhardt personally, but he knew enough about people to recognize gratitude when he saw it, no matter how shy.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. Obviously, their attempts to infuse her with a fighting spirit and a can-do attitude had fallen short. "You want another round?" he offered, conceding defeat.

"Nah. I don't want any distractions from kicking your ass."

"You mean you want to play another game?" Cam said incredulously.

In the face of Taylor's smirk, Xander discovered he'd been wrong; she wasn't dismissing them or their efforts at all. She was still a little distant, but they'd gotten through. She would just never admit to it. Working at the UN hadn't been this emotionally taxing.

"We're here, right?" she said. "And you two obviously need to get out more. But tomorrow it's back to business."

"Of course," Xander assured her seriously. But as Taylor drained the last of her bottle and hopped down the stairs towards their lane, he found himself exchanging a grin with Cam. Perhaps this wouldn't be as hard as they thought.


End file.
